Page 102 of The Laird's Secret Bairn

With Skye, hopefully.

He kissed her forehead, before setting her down and walking off to saddle his horse. Stephen walked with him, offering to accompany him, but he shook his head.

“It’s something I must do on me own.”

“Fair enough,” Stephen said, giving his shoulder a firm squeeze. “I wish ye all the luck in the world, Dougal.”

“Aye, I think I’ll need it.”

Stephen shook his head. “Nay, I daenae think ye will. Skye is clearly taken with ye, and she’ll forgive ye. Just make sure ye tell her how ye feel.”

Dougal intended to do just that. This was the last chance he was going to get, and he wasn’t going to mess it up again. Not this time.

He swung himself up onto his horse, gathering the reins with hands that trembled only slightly. The road stretched out before him, long and winding towards Castle Muir and whatever answer waited for him there.

“Dougal,” Stephen called.

He turned back to him. “Aye?”

“Make sure ye come back with her.”

“That is the plan, Stephen, but it is up to her.”

Stephen nodded, satisfied as he took a step back from the horse.

Dougal took one last look at the home he was leaving behind, then turned his gaze forward and pressed his heels gently into the horse’s flanks.

The beast set off at an easy trot, carrying him away from everything familiar and towards everything uncertain. He did not look back.

He’d practiced what he meant to say the entire ride south, rehearsed it until the words felt worn smooth as river stone, but every one of them abandoned him the moment she turned and said his name like that. As if it cost her something. As if she hadn’t expected to want to say it at all.

She looked thinner than he remembered. Paler too, shadows sitting heavy beneath her eyes that hadn’t been there when he’d sent her away. He hated himself for noticing them, hated himself more for knowing exactly whose fault it was.

"Now I ken it was the worst decision I've ever made, and I've made plenty."

Skye’s eyes went wide, her lower lip trembling. “How is Lily?” she asked, before he could gather himself enough to speak first.“And Kenna. And the animals. Has that wretched goat behaved himself in me absence?”

It was obvious she was trying to broach safe topics. She was not asking how he was. It hurt, but he supposed he deserved it after what he had done to her.

“Ye willnae ask me how I am, then?” He kept his voice even, though it cost him.

Her chin lifted the way it did when she meant to armor herself against him. “I assume ye’re doing well enough for yerself.” Her voice was brittle, careful, devoid of the warmth he’d grown so hopelessly used to. “Ye got exactly what ye wanted after all, did ye nae? No marriageable lady in the Highlands will refuse ye now that ye’ve proven ye’re nae a monster. Or at least nae the sort that eats lassies for breakfast.”

It struck him harder than he had expected, hearing his old bitterness thrown back at him in her voice. He hated that he had made her so bitter. This wasn’t the Skye he had fallen in love with. The Skye who had laughed until she cried over a singing goat, braided flowers into Lily’s hair and told her stories until she fell asleep.

He readily admitted it to himself now, and he was determined to say it to her. Let her know exactly how he felt about her, in the hope it was not too late.

“Nay.” He stepped further into the room, closing the door softly behind him, giving her every chance to tell him to stop, to leave,to go back the way he’d come. She said nothing. “I only ever wanted to devour one lass in particular, as it happens.”

Her breath caught. He heard it even from across the room, and something in his chest eased slightly at the small proof that she wasn’t unaffected as she wanted him to believe.

“And what changed yer mind so suddenly, Dougal? Last I saw ye, ye were quite certain ye had nothing left in ye to offer anyone.”

“Ye did.” He said it plainly, without hesitation. “Ye changed me mind, Skye. Ye, and a stack of pages I never should have let Stephen force into me hands, and a great deal of time spent alone realizing exactly what a fool I’d been by sending ye away when I should have begged ye to stay.”

Skye folded her arms, though he could see her resolve wavering, could see it in the way her gaze kept flicking to his bare face and back to his eyes, as though she still couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.

“What if ye change yer mind again once the novelty of missing me wears off? What happens to me, then?”